Writers — Do You Know Right From Wrong?

Have you ever found that lessons from one area of your life can spill over to another? I gave my daughter some advice the other day that provides a valuable lesson for a successful freelance writing career. It boils down to two steps: admit when you’re wrong and know when you’re right.

Admit When You’re Wrong

Often, we want people, especially clients, to think that we know everything about a particular topic or business area. It’s a way of highlighting our expertise and justifying what they pay us. But everyone makes mistakes, and it’s the way you handle those that defines whether you are really a professional. I’ll give you an example. I wrote and published a post for a client of mine. It was factually correct and well written, but the client wanted it pulled for reasons of his own. Now, I could have raised a stink but what would have been the point. I simply pulled the post and emailed the client to let him know it had been done.

Another example. Suppose you get something wrong in a piece of writing. Despite fact checking and triangulation this sometimes happens and you may not realise until later. The best case scenario is that you catch it before the client does, in which case you send a revised version of the piece, noting that you found an error which you have now corrected. Everybody’s happy. If the client catches it first, all you do is apologise (not grovel) and fix it as quickly as possible. Then work out in your own mind where the process went wrong so you can avoid errors in the future.

Assuming that any mistake you make is minor (because you’re a professional writer and have done your best to meet the brief), I find that an early and sincere apology deflects anger and still leaves the client relationship intact.

Know When You’re Right

Of course, there’s another aspect of your relationship with your client. The client hires you as an expert writer, so there are times when you have to take charge and give that client your best advice. You also have to know when your research and groundwork are solid. I’ll give you another recent example. I had written a news piece for an online magazine. The magazine went live, and one of the subscribers queried something I had written as they had seen the story covered differently from another source. The editor passed me the query. To be on the safe side, I rechecked my information, saw that it was solid, took the chance to add some new information that had come in and sent it back to the editor with a note to that effect. A day later, it turned out that the other publication had changed their story to reflect the slant I had taken.

Another example: A client asked me to write some keyword rich articles, but was bothered by the fact that the keywords only appeared a few times. I explained that there were some important spots where they should appear, and if they appeared more often the article would be virtually unreadable. The client took my advice and got a better article because of it. I also got repeat commissions from that client.

Knowing when to admit a mistake or when to stick to your guns will help you go far in freelance writing. As the old song says: ‘You gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em …’

(Photo: canonsnapper)